


Let's Get Some Air

by womenseemwicked



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Horcruxes, Inferi, Lie Low At Lupin's, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ruin-It of other sorts, Sirius Black as Padfoot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womenseemwicked/pseuds/womenseemwicked
Summary: After PoA. Remus suggests a trip to the beach to let them both stretch their legs a bit. It all goes well enough until Padfoot finds something.





	Let's Get Some Air

Sirius had been staying with him nearly a month when Remus suggested the beach.

“You shouldn’t have to stay cooped up in this hole all the time. We should go - you as Padfoot - just so we can both get some air.

"You managed all right on your own for a year, and now you’ll have me there too.

"And this beach is horrible. No one wants to be there. We might even be alone enough for you to enjoy it in human form for a while too.”

Sirius had the strength to disagree only once: “it’s too dangerous, Remus.”

“So was becoming an unregistered animagus so you could chase a werewolf round the Hogwarts grounds once a month."

They took the train, eschewing magic in the hopes that it’d be harder that way to trace them if anyone was keeping an eye on Lupin’s bedsit. Padfoot wore a collar and leash for appearances, and took up the seat beside Remus, resting his head on his thigh.

Remus’s hands irresistibly found themselves scratching behind his ears every once in a while, and he thought he could feel the dog relax a little the closer they got to the beach, the sea-salt air coming in through the cracks in the badly abused train windows as they neared the coast.

“This is us, Snuffles,” Remus finally said when their stop came, just barely remembering to take hold of the leash as Sirius hopped down from the seat and led him out the door. He thought he heard murmurs of what a good dog he had from the Muggles behind him, and he smiled proudly in spite of himself.

At first Sirius kept to Remus’s side. They walked down the ugly, lonesome beach for nearly a mile and a half before finding an honestly deserted stretch, but even there they found evidence of recent human activity. Someone, probably teenaged Muggles, had built a small fort out of driftwood, and spray painted its sides. Padfoot ran inside, sniffed about, and came back out with a wooden pipe between his teeth.

Remus felt his lips crack with a smile at how perfectly _Sirius_ he looked, and recalled the times he’d busted the other Marauders with Muggle narcotics in their fifth year, as well as the times he’d failed to bust them once James became Head Boy in sixth. Instead James always told him off for something else for his trouble. In the end he had decided that if he couldn’t beat them he would join them. He’d always been the best at the French inhale. Sirius could make smoke rings for days.

Padfoot dropped the pipe at his feet and Remus picked it up. It was an old, beat up little thing, and smelled of skunk weed. He made a face.

“You trying to play fetch, boy?” Remus joked.

Padfoot seemed to grin, quickly pacing and wagging his tail, and Remus wound up and threw it like a cricket pitch. He laughed out loud when Padfoot ran after it, into the surf, coming back to him dripping wet and panting happily.

Half an hour later Remus was sitting against the spray-painted fort with a book in his lap, and Padfoot was wandering increasingly far down the beach, chasing birds and fighting sandcrabs and occasionally barking back at him as if to check that everything was okay. Remus kept a careful eye on him at first, but eventually he grew more comfortable. It seemed Sirius had grown cautious in his old age. Remus tried not to think too hard about why.

He came to the end of the chapter and looked up to find Padfoot again, closing his book. He ran his amber eyes up and down the surf, but nowhere in the bright grey light of the beach could he spot Padfoot’s shaggy black silhouette. He stood and frowned, surprised to find himself shaking slightly.

 _It’s fine._ He told himself. _He’s just regained some of his old confidence. He can take care of himself, he’s always been good at that._ But none of these things felt as convincing as they should.

“Padfoot?” he called, keeping his voice steady. “Pads! Come here, boy!” He held his breath, listening for anything, his eyes peeled.

The tide went out.

Waves crashed nihilistically on the beach.

Remus heard the jangling of Padfoot’s collar around his neck and breathed out hard. _Oh thank Merlin_.

When he turned to look, Padfoot was grinning ear to ear and wagging his sopping wet tail.

“Shit, Pads, you’re soaking!” Remus scolded. “What’d you get into?”

Padfoot barked excitedly and trotted away a few steps before looking back at him. He barked again.

“Oh no. I know better than to follow you places by now. Besides, we’ve only got a couple hours before we have to head back and I’m not in any shape to run all the way back to catch the last train.”

Padfoot came halfway back to his side and whined pathetically before stepping carefully backwards a few steps. Remus was vividly reminded of the long afternoon he and James had spent teaching Padfoot that trick, and the treat he'd gotten for it. Shaking his head, Remus sighed and followed.

The route was trecherous and Remus had soggy shoes and eyes crusted with sea-spray by the time they got to the place, despite the dog’s diligent and explicit directions for where he should step. He cursed with increasing vigor each time the rising tide met his clammy skin, but he didn’t turn back.

Finally they arrived at the cave. Padfoot wagged his thick, sopping tail, and ran circles around him.

“What?” Remus asked, bringing out his wand and illuminating the tip of it to see better into the depths. “Are we on a treasure hunt or something, Pads? Do you smell treasure? You aren't that kind of dog, are you? What’s so bloody exciting about this cave?”

Padfoot rolled his eyes and snorted. He transformed back into Sirius and raised an eyebrow.

“Seclusion,” he said, stretching and breathing in the almost disgustingly salty air of the cave with a blissful look.

“It does look that way,” Remus nodded, glad to see peace on Sirius’s face for the first time since he’d appeared at Remus’s door.

But he was still apprehensive. He flicked the light from his wand up into the ceiling of the cave, illuminating it all more starkly, and ran a few quick detection spells. No human life besides them, no recent magic, no technology he could detect, but there was something else. He frowned.

“Do you feel that?” Sirius asked, as Remus noticed the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

“Yeah.” Remus reached into his pocket and handed Sirius his wand wordlessly, staring at the far wall of the cave with a distrusting frown. “Something’s hidden here.”

Sirius took his wand with the uncomfortable hand of one still unused to the feeling of the wood in his fingers after so much time.

“Should I transform back? D’you think--”

“No,” Remus shook his head. “Whatever’s here has been here for a long time. If we find anyone inside they’ll have to be long dead, or at least quite unaware of current events. You’re safe.”

“Looks like we’re going treasure hunting after all,” Sirius commented.

Remus’s responding smile was tense. “Stay behind me. _Protego maxima_.”

Sirius chuckled. “Nice to be protected instead of hunted for once. I can handle myself though, Remus.” But he didn’t move from where Remus wanted him, and though he kept his wand at the ready he did not attempt any spells.

Remus cast several specific revealing charms before the outline of a door appeared briefly in the far wall. They both stepped toward it irresistibly as if following some invisible pull.

“How d’you think--”

“Blood,” Sirius said thinly.

Remus balked and gave him a questioning frown.

“I heard about vaults like this growing up. The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black had more than a few scattered across the globe,” he explained with a grimace.

“ _Any_ blood?” Remus asked.

“Magical blood,” Sirius clarified. “Ironically, they could never figure out a way for it to distinguish between muggleborn and pureblood though.”

Sirius cut his hand open with a quick spell before Remus could stop him, and placed it against the rough, black stone.

“I could have--”

“It’s nothing, Remus, I--” Sirius waved his wand over the cut to close it, but only smeared the blood further. He hissed and tried again, but Remus stopped him with a hand before he ended up doing more damage. He took Sirius’s hand gently and cleaned and closed the wound. “I’m no good with magic anymore. I have to do what little I can on this adventure.”

Remus said nothing; the unbearable cruelty of Sirius having such difficulty with the magic that had once come to him so easy silencing him. Sirius nodded toward the now gaping hole in the wall.

“Let’s do this.”

And Remus followed him, flicking light from his wand up and ahead so it filled the secret cavern. They both stopped in their tracks after a moment as they realised that the ball of light still hadn’t stopped moving, and watched in awe as it finally came to rest at the exact center of the ceiling, at least a hundred feet in the air.

“Merlin’s sagging tits,” Remus muttered under his breath without even hearing what he was saying.

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed, his own voice hushed with wonder as well.

“What is this place?” Remus whispered. Quiet as it was, his voice bounced back to them from across the still waters of the underground lake in front of them.

Sirius shook his head. “I never heard of a cave like this in the family histories, and I would’ve if we had one. This has to be a nobler and more ancient house.” He almost chuckled gleefully, bitterly. “Mother would be so jealous.”

Remus glanced around them.

“There isn’t a boat.”

“Do you think we have to make one?” Sirius suggested.

Remus tried. He grimaced and shook his head. “Something’s blocking me.”

“What about…” Sirius stepped closer to the water and stuck his wand out over it. He focused his energy and closed his eyes, frowning. “Ah.” With a labored flick of his wrist he called up a chain from the impenetrably dark waters, and caught it in his other hand.

“Nice one, Pads,” Remus gave him a grin and took the back end of the chain as they began to pull.

It wasn’t long before the boat on the end of the magical chain knocked against the stone shelf that was their beach. They both paused.

“It’s not big enough,” Remus stated as they took in the small boat.

“You really aren’t used to working with animagi anymore, are you Lupin?” Sirius said not unkindly, and transformed. His wand dropped to the ground and he hopped into the boat as Padfoot.

Remus picked up the discarded wand and joined him carefully, sitting down on the single seat. Padfoot sat carefully across from him, and the boat began to move.

Padfoot glanced over the edge of the boat, careful but curious, and sniffed. Remus held his illuminated wand-tip as near the edge of the water’s gently ruffled surface as he dared. Suddenly, something appeared in the water below, something like a dementor without the cloak, and the both nearly jumped out of their skins. Padfoot returned firmly to the center of the boat, shaking against Remus’s shins, and Remus ran a soothing hand down his back.

The boat knocked against the stone shelf that was the lake’s single island, and came to a stop. Padfoot jumped out onto the bank and transformed.

“What the bloody hell was that thing?” Sirius hissed, offering Remus a hand as he stepped out of the boat.

“I hope I’m wrong, but it looked like an inferius.”

“There's inferi in there?” Sirius glanced over the immense lake and laughed a bit manically. “Fuck, Moony, what have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

Remus laughed too. It didn’t help, but he imagined it did. They still hadn’t let go of each other’s hands. Remus could feel Sirius’s pulse through the palm of his hand. Or perhaps it was his own. They turned to the center of the island, into a gently glowing green light.

“A birdbath?” Sirius suggested with hopeful disappointment. “That’s a bit anticlimactic.”

Remus shuddered and shook his head.

“There’s something wrong with it... Sirius, we should go.”

Sirius stepped closer and frowned. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I can almost feel my hackles rising at it though. The moon is still a week away but I can feel my hackles rising. Sirius, this place is full of dark magic and it’s as if it’s all concentrated right here.”

Sirius nodded. “I felt a bit of that too. You don’t think it’s…”

“Voldemort,” Remus agreed.

Sirius barred his teeth, but stopped just short of growling.

“We have to destroy it. Whatever it is.”

Remus didn’t respond, but when Sirius turned to look at him he nodded tersely.

“It’ll be at the bottom of the basin,” he assumed. “But we’re not getting down to it without something horrible… it’s likely some sort of potion that will kill us or maim us or drive us insane.”

Sirius paused to stare, a little light of love in his eyes that reminded Remus painfully of their last years at Hogwarts. “You must've made the best Defense teacher ever, Moony. Merlin, to be taught by you.”

Remus’s lips betrayed a small smirk despite his huff of annoyance. “If you’d ever listened to a word I said in school you would have been learning from me all the time.”

Sirius shook his head and laughed. “So how should we get through the potion, Professor?” he deferred.

Remus let their hands fall apart and circled the bird bath with Moony’s narrow intensity. He waved his wand over it and tried a handful of cautious spells. As he expected, none of them worked. Finally, he took the scoop shaped shell from the side of it and lowered it into the basin. He filled it up and lifted it.

Though the scoop retained liquid, nothing dripped from the sides or the bottom, which should have been wet but were not. Remus tipped the potion out over the rocks, or tried to, but found there was nothing in the shell.

“Shit,” Sirius hissed.

“I believe we'll have to drink it,” Remus grimaced.

They met eyes over the basin, horrified, but neither willing to quit even now. Neither thought of Harry. Neither wanted to. The boy had survived this long without them. Surely he would be fine without them again, if not better.

“Let me.” When Sirius finally spoke his voice was somber, cracked. It was the voice of a man who'd been broken twelve long years before and had been on borrowed time ever since.  
Remus shook his head.

“You’ve got a future. You’re innocent, and the evidence is out there to acquit you. But I’ll be Remus Lupin, werewolf, in the eyes of the whole wizarding world for the rest of my days. If anyone can afford to die right now, it’s me. Let me drink it.”

Sirius rolled his eyes.

“You keep thinking you’re the last word in tortured, Remus, and maybe once that was true, but not anymore. I’ve come too close to losing my soul too many times in the past decade to truly care about dying anymore,” he said. “Besides, if this doesn’t actually kill the drinker, the one of us who isn’t drunk or in pain or turned into a newt will have to get the other one out of here. We’ve established already that you’re the master of Defense, and I’m half a squib.”

Remus looked pained, but he had to see the logic in Sirius’s words. He nodded and held his eyes for a long moment.

The next moment he reached out and pulled Sirius into a kiss over the lightly glowing basin. Their lips met with a desperation akin to 1979, but it had never been clearer how much time had passed. Their lips didn’t quite come together right, unkempt stubble rubbed each other's cheeks, and the spark that had once been so strong was now embers that they'd both tried for so many years to stamp out. Still, they didn’t mind.

“I love you,” Remus said forcefully. “Don’t you bloody die on me, Sirius Black.”

Sirius nodded tersely, stroking the back of his neck with his thumb before pulling apart once more and taking the scoop from Remus’s hand.

“Don’t let me stop. No matter what,” he said, filling the shell with potion. “Whatever this is, He put too much effort into keeping it safe for us to let it stand. Promise me you’ll finish this.”

Remus nodded, unable to speak, and watched as Sirius tipped the potion into his mouth.

“Well?”

Sirius groaned and closed his eyes tightly.

“It’s bad,” he confirmed. But he opened his eyes again and scooped up more of the potion. He drank. “Merlin,” he gasped, shaking his head. “It’s a good thing you’re not drinking this though. It’s an emotion thing, I think.” He tried to laugh, but it just came out as a bitter breath. “Lucky me, I don’t really get those so much anymore.” Sirius scooped himself more and knocked it back.

The level of potion in the basin was lowering visibly. Remus’s fingers itched to pull Sirius back as he dipped the scoop back into the potion, his face gaunt like it had been that first night they’d been reunited in the Shrieking Shack and his hand trembling. He drank.

Sirius’s breathing was labored now, and Remus could tell he was trying his best not to grimace, but he was failing at least half the time. After the fifth drink, he cried out and fell to his knees. Remus rounded the basin and dropped to the ground beside him, catching the scoop as it fell from his hand, and taking Sirius’s face in his other.

“Sirius. Padfoot. Stay with me, come on,” he begged.

Sirius groaned. “So cold,” he shuddered. “Fuck, it’s so cold. They’re coming for me...”

Remus steeled himself and nodded.

“It’s okay, Pads. I’m here. Nobody’s coming for you. I’m here.”

When Sirius opened his eyes they looked glassy and unfocused. Remus wondered if he could even see. He trembled.

“Come over here, Sirius,” Remus bit out, helping him to stand. “I’ve got something for you. Drink this.”

Remus had never hated his own body so much as he watched his hand, as if disconnected from himself, dip the shell into the potion and bring it back up to Sirius’s lips. Sirius drank greedily and then coughed.

"Traitor!" he gasped. "You filthy fucking traitor. How could you?"

Remus couldn't pry his jaw open wide enough to reply but for to say, "I’m sorry, Sirius. I’m so sorry. Here. Drink some water," as he dipped the scoop once more. He felt something at the bottom of the basin.

Sirius drank, just as trusting as before, and nearly retched. Remus gave him a moment as he stilled with his head low between his shoulders. Finally he lolled it back upright again and smacked his lips drily.

“More. Give me more, Remus. It’s what I deserve.”

Remus’s heart stopped. His hand froze. This was somehow ten times worse than Sirius calling him a traitor.

“Please, Remus.”

He could feel the tears on his cheeks, but didn’t know when they’d fallen. He scraped the last of the potion from the basin and pressed the scoop to Sirius’s lips. Sirius drank every last drop, and then licked the shell as if trying to get more.

“That’s it, Sirius,” Remus said, comforting. “You’re done. You did it.” He reached into the bottom of the basin and brought out the shining piece of jewelry there.

Sirius groaned and collapsed.

“No!” Remus dropped down beside him and held Sirius close. He ignited his wand and checked Sirius’s pupils, but there was no response.

“Water,” he croaked desperately. “Please.”

Remus conjured water from the tip of his wand, but it evaporated before it hit the floor. He tried again over the basin, but it seemed to sink right into the stone. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered, trying anything else he could think of to similar effect. There was a small wet sound behind him and Remus whirled around.

“Sirius, no!” He pulled Sirius back from the water’s edge, but it was too late. The lake, perfectly still and serene even as they’d been ferried across it, was now rippling with movement.

Even delirious as he was, Sirius seemed to sense that he’d done something wrong, and crawled back up beside Remus, clinging to his leg like a little child or a frightened dog. Remus shuddered as the first inferius surfaced, dripping wet and rotted, and sent it back into the depths with a well-aimed _depulso_. When the next three rose above the water, however, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get so lucky with them all.

“ _Protego!_ ”

He desperately threw back any other inferi that neared their island with quick flicks of his wand as he waited for more to join the horde. At his feet, Sirius was worryingly still.

Remus put a hand on his head, sifting through his matted curls, and threw back another inferius angrily.

“This was a stupid idea, Sirius. This was really fucking stupid. But it’s probably appropriate that we’d go out like this, isn’t it?” Sirius didn't respond. “I’m sorry Sirius,” Remus said.

And then he raised both hands to his wand and cast with all his might, surrounding them in a roiling wall of flames that engulfed all the inferi that had surfaced around them. He could hear and smell them as they burned, and it wasn’t long before he was choking on the smoke. But not long after that he realised that somehow he and Sirius weren’t dying, and that it was probably a good idea for them to get the hell out of there before their luck changed again.

Remus tucked the locket deep into his jacket pocket, and hoisted Sirius over his shoulder. He carried them both to the boat, keeping an eye on his flames, and pushed off from the island. Outside the cavern, back in that once-inhospitable looking cave, Remus stopped and set Sirius down on the floor.

He picked up a shell from beside him, transfigured it into a cup, and produced clean water from his wand. He pressed the cup to Sirius’s lips.

“Stay with me. Come on, Sirius, I can’t lose you now,” he muttered continuously as Sirius drank and he filled and refilled the shell for him.

Remus’s pulse was still hammering in his throat when Sirius finally opened his eyes and met Remus’s gaze.

“Hey,” he breathed, licking his wet lips.

“Hey,” Remus replied, brushing Sirius’s sweat-damp hair out of his face. “How’re you feeling?”

“Spectacular,” Sirius deadpanned.

Remus almost laughed with relief.

“What did we get?”

“Oh.” Remus set down the cup and reached into his jacket. He handed the locket to Sirius. “Just this thing. I don’t know, it doesn’t seem particularly powerful. Nothing like what a room like that should have been protecting. But--” Remus frowned. “Sirius? You okay?”

Sirius’s hands were trembling as he stared down at the locket.

“This was mine.”

Remus’s eyes went wide. “Yours? How?”

Sirius wrenched his eyes from the locket and met Remus’s gaze.

“I gave it to Regulus. Before I went to Hogwarts for the first time. Before we stopped talking.” Sirius’s eyes were wet, his brow furrowed with confusion and pain. “I just don’t know how it ended up… Fuck, Moony, do you think one of those things was--”

“No,” Remus said firmly. Sirius met his eyes with all the hope in the world, but all of it self-aware of its own falseness. “No. Voldemort wouldn’t have done something like that to a pureblood. Never. Reg was not among those things.” He was assuring himself as much as Sirius.

Sirius nodded and looked back at the locket, and Remus took his hands between his own.

“Maybe there’s something inside,” he suggested.

Sirius didn’t answer for a while, but finally he nodded. He pushed the locket on Remus.

“You open it. I can’t--”

Remus took the locket from him gently.

The note inside was as legible as the day it had been written, apparently unaffected by years submerged in potion.

“To the Dark Lord,” Remus read. “I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real-- oh my God.”

“What?” Sirius looked up.

“...I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can,” Remus continued, horrified. “I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more. R.A.B.”

“Voldemort had a Horcrux?” Sirius said, terrified.

“We have to find out if Regulus destroyed it. Merlin, if he didn't…” Remus trailed off.

“He would have. He would have, or he would have died trying,” Sirius said with complete confidence. But the last part of his own sentence had him doubting again.

“Except that it’s much easier said than done, and Regulus was just a kid,” Remus said, merely externalizing both their concerns. “Christ. He never told you about this?” he asked.

Sirius shook his head. “We hadn’t said a word to each other for years by the time he went missing. I never knew--” Sirius’s breath hitched in his throat. “I never knew he turned against Voldemort in the end. I never knew what happened. I just got the owl that he was gone, and some accusation that ‘my people’ had something to do with it.”

His voice cracked. “Fuck, Moony. I never even mourned him properly. I just thought--” His words were cut off by a sob. When he raised his head again his face was wet with tears. “Well there goes my twelve year dry streak,” he quipped, his eyes red as he clung tight to the locket in his hands. “Shit, I miss him, Rem.”

Remus didn’t know what to say, so he just pulled him into his arms and held him close as he’d once done whenever Sirius woke from nightmares of Walburga Black’s particular brand of parenting.

“I love you too, by the way,” Sirius sniffled after a long time. “I never stopped.”

Remus turned his face and kissed Sirius’s damp cheek softly. He closed his eyes and held the shaking man in his arms as twelve years of emotions took over Sirius in waves that mimicked the ones outside the darkening cave.

**Author's Note:**

> And thus I accidentally discovered another way they could have all been prepared by the time Voldemort comes back in GoF. Whoops.
> 
> I know the boat isn't supposed to be able to carry two wizards worth of magic at once, but 1) I'm calling bullshit on that since Dumbledore easily has at least one and a half wizards worth of magic, so with Harry there that's got to at least amount to two full wizards. And 2) if house-elf magic doesn't count why not not count a transformed animagi? And 3) if animagus doesn't strike your fancy, why not get werewolf racist like Voldemort and say their magic is different enough that it doesn't register. I mean hell, it's not like we even get this one wizard per cave boat rule from someone who actually knows for sure about it. Ok I'm done now. Thanks for indulging me. Bless you for reading this. I've enjoyed your presence here.


End file.
